A Two-Fold Apologetic Procedure

I am currently taking the Foundations in Creation Apologetics course. It is offered through Answer In Genesis. Here is the link to the courses they offer: Education

Here is a section from my reading assignment

Taken from Always Ready by Greg Bahnsen

Chapter 14: A Two-Fold Apologetic Procedure

“Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world?
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”
Paul could stake his apologetic for Christian faith on this set of rhetorical
questions (1 Cor. 1:20), knowing that the word of the cross destroys the world’s
wisdom and brings its discernment to nothing (v. 19). The unregenerate heart,
with its darkened mind, evaluates the gospel as weakness and folly (vv. 18, 23),
but in actual fact it expresses God’s saving power and true wisdom (vv. 18, 21,
24).

What the world calls “foolish” is in reality wisdom. Conversely, what the world
deems “wise” is actually foolish. The unbeliever has his standards all turned
around, and thus he mocks the Christian faith or views it as intellectually
dishonorable. But Paul knew that God could unmask the arrogance of unbelief
and display its pitiable pretense of knowledge: “the foolishness of God is wiser
than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (v. 25). Although the
unbeliever sees the Christian faith as foolish and weak, that faith has the strength
and intellectual response to expose “worldly wisdom” for what it truly is: utter
foolishness. God has chosen the (so called) foolish things of the world in order
that He might put to shame those who boast of their (so called) wisdom (v. 27).
In the face of God’s revelation the unbeliever is “without an apologetic” (cf. Rom.
1:20, in the Greek). His intellectual position has no worthwhile credentials in the
long run. When he comes up against the intellectual challenge of the gospel as
Paul would present it, the unregenerate is left with no place to stand. The
outcome of the encounter is summarily expressed by Paul when he declares,
“Where is the wise? Where is the disputer of this world?” The fact is that God
makes foolish the wisdom of this world, and thus the genuinely wise unbeliever is
not to be found. The man who can adequately debate and defend the outlook of
this world (i.e., unbelief) has never lived. Rejection of the Christian faith cannot
be justified, and the intellectual position of the unbeliever cannot be genuinely
defended in the world of thought. The Spiritual weapons of the Christian
apologist are mighty before God unto the casting down of every high imagination
that is exalted against the knowledge of God (2 Cor. 10:4–5). The unbeliever, as
we saw in the last study, is a fool in the scriptural perspective, and as such his
position amounts to a hatred of knowledge (Prov. 1:22, 29); his intellectual attack
on the gospel stems from “knowledge” which is falsely so called (1 Tim. 6:20).
The apologist should aim to put this pretense of knowledge (which is, at base, a
hatred of knowledge) to shame; he should manifest the foolishness of this world’s
“wisdom.” This calls for much more than a piecemeal attempt to adduce vague
probabilities of isolated evidences for the reasonableness of Christianity. It
requires, instead, the full scale demonstration of the unreasonableness of anti-
Christianity in contrast to the certainty of truth to be found in God’s word. Dr. Van
Til writes:

The struggle between Christian theism and its opponents covers the
whole field of knowledge… Christian theism’s fundamental contention is
just this, that nothing whatsoever can be known unless God can be and is
known… The important thing to note is the fundamental difference
between theism and antitheism on the question of epistemology. There is
not a spot in heaven or on earth about which there is no dispute between
the two opposing parties (A Survey of Christian Epistemology, den Dulk
Christian Foundation, 1969, p.116).

The method of reasoning by presupposition may be said to be indirect
rather than direct. The issue between believers and non-believers in
Christian theism cannot be settled by a direct appeal to “facts” or “laws”
whose nature and significance is already agreed upon by both parties to
the debate… The Christian apologist must place himself upon the position
of his opponent, assuming the correctness of his method merely for
argument’s sake, in order to show him that on such a position the “facts”
are not facts and the “laws” are not laws. He must also ask the non-
Christian to place himself upon the Christian position for argument’s sake
in order that he may be shown that only upon such a basis do “facts” and
“laws” appear intelligible…

Therefore the claim must be made that Christianity alone is reasonable for
men to hold. And it is utterly reasonable. It is wholly irrational to hold to
any other position than that of Christianity. Christianity alone does not
crucify reason itself… The best, the only, the absolutely certain proof of
the truth of Christianity is that unless its truth be presupposed there is no
proof of anything. Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the
idea of proof itself. (The Defense of the Faith, Philadelphia: Presbyterian
and Reformed, 1995, pp.117–118, 396).

The fool must be answered by showing him his foolishness and the necessity of
Christianity as the precondition of intelligibility.

In Proverbs 26:4–5 we are instructed as to how we should answer the foolish
unbeliever—how we should demonstrate that God makes foolish the so called
“wisdom” of this world. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be like
unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own conceit.”
The two-fold apologetic procedure mentioned by Van Til above is here described.
In the first place, the unbeliever should not be answered in terms of his own
misguided presuppositions; the apologist should defend his faith by working
within his own presuppositions. If he surrenders to the assumptions of the
unbeliever, the believer will never effectively set forth a reason for the hope that
is in him. He will have lost the battle from the outset, constantly being trapped
behind enemy lines. Hence Christianity’s intellectual strength and challenge will
not be set forth.

But in the second place the apologist should answer the fool according to his
self-proclaimed presuppositions (i.e., according to his folly). In so doing he aims
to show the unbeliever the outcome of those assumptions. Pursued to their
consistent end presuppositions of unbelief render man’s reasoning vacuous and
his experience unintelligible; in short, they lead to the destruction of knowledge,
the dead-end of epistemological futility, to utter foolishness. By placing himself on
the unbeliever’s position and pursing it to its foolish undermining of facts and
laws, the Christian apologist prevents the fool from being wise in his own conceit.
He can conclude, “Where then is the wise dispute of this world?!” There is none,
for as the history of humanistic philosophy so clearly illustrates, God has made
foolish the wisdom of the world. It is confounded y the “foolish” preaching of the
cross.

Always Ready, Covenant Media Foundation, 1996, pp. 59–62.

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